“Wanna go to the gun range today?”

Not only do I intensely dislike like guns, but I really don’t want to be surrounded by gadgets of intimidation and harm right before I have to go teach yoga.

I still haven’t lived down the time I walked into the studio with a Coke in my hand; I think it would have been less shocking had I been on fire. Imagine if I showed up with gunpowder on my hands.

“Nope. No thanks. No guns for me.”

“You’re such a hippie. What would you do if someone broke into the house and I wasn’t home?”

“I don’t need a gun. I would just go all Jedi on them.”

“You know that wouldn’t work out too well, right?”

“Clearly, you underestimate the power of the Force.”

My husband thinks I’m being absurd. (And a little too caught up in Star Wars-mania. He’s from Australia. It was never his thing, and it’s depressing to have to keep explaining what the Force is all about to someone who doesn’t really care.)

Maybe it does sound a little harebrained. But hey, he was almost convinced the other day it wasn’t really sprinkling because the weather app kept saying it wasn’t supposed to rain. It’s a house of absurdity.

“I’d feel better if you knew how to handle a gun.”

“Easy, this isn’t the old West.” He may have a point, but still. “Here’s the thing. I’m not anti-gun. I just don’t want to hold one or shoot one.”

I’m the exact person who shouldn’t have a gun. I’m clumsy, I am kind of a hippie and it would just be awkward. Like an octopus in Ugg boots. And as much as I would love to be a badass, crime-fighting international babe of mystery, I don’t believe guns are sexy or cool whatsoever.

I do believe a free society should come with responsibility and accountability when it comes to guns, not maniacal sick f*cks who kill people for no reason. (I’m guessing even sick f*cks agree with that one.)

I believe in the 2nd Amendment. You have the constitutional right to protect yourself from people who want to take what’s yours and other assorted crazies. I just don’t want to hold a gun myself.

I believe people who purposely shoot people are shitty people, and quite often mentally ill. Mark David Chapman has been up for parole eight times and denied eight times for killing John Lennon. If he ever gets out, I predict another shitty person will gun him down within a month.

I believe an NRA sticker on my front window should be enough to scare the shitty people away. What kind of idiot would take a chance on breaking into a house with a sticker that reads “guns don’t kill people, blood loss and organ damage do?” (Shudder.) Not exactly what you would call “killing with kindness.” Oxymoron of the year.

I believe if you think shooting animals is sport, there’s a special place in the depths of hell for you. Enjoy.

James Bond is hot. He carries a gun, just like Charlie’s Angels, La Femme Nikita, Rambo, Dirty Harry and Agent Starling. But they’re all fictional, and if they kill or are killed as a result of a gun, it’s because a writer wrote it. They’re never in physical pain and they’re never taken to the emergency room. Their mothers don’t sit up worrying.

And speaking of Charlie’s Angels, I do believe the finger gun is kind of sexy and cool.

I believe mental health is more important for people than, well, pretty much anything. They pull in more than enough dough from liquor licenses. Can’t we use that to fund mental health care facilities? People can get drunk and sane.

I believe Dexter was kind of sexy, even though he killed people. At least he didn’t use a gun. And again, fictional.

I believe if you think guns are sexy or cool, then you probably haven’t ever been threatened, intimidated, harmed or even in a place where you could have been killed by a gun. Or have you?

I believe all the innocent souls who ever died at the wrong end of a bullet probably don’t think guns are cool.

I know it’s not about coolness. Then again, what if we replaced guns with knives? Or even better, with swords? At least it would be a fairer fight. I could wield my samurai like Uma Thurman against the Crazy 88s if someone broke in. If I had one. And if I weren’t so clumsy. I’d probably end up slashing myself to ribbons.

George Harrison said, “If everyone who had a gun just shot themselves, there wouldn’t be a problem.” This, from the quiet Beatle. This, from someone who spent his life promoting peace on earth instead of threatening it, intimidating it, hurting it and trying to kill it.

3 Comments

My father used to make me go to the gun range with him to shoot. I hated it. He also mad me carry his golf clubs around a 18 hole course when I was a school age child. I hated this too. I think he felt both were important for building character. Both did: I now dislike golf and guns! I think there is a lesson in there somewhere!

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Anne Clendening was born and raised in Los Angeles, California. She is a yoga teacher and author of Bent: How Yoga Saved My Ass, published January, 2018. You can read her darker thoughts on her blog Dirty Blonde Ink. She is currently living in L.A. with her husband and their boxer dog Sabina.

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